Wythe to Adams, 5 December 1783

Letter text, 5 December 1783

Facsimile of letter from George Wythe to John Adams, dated December 5, 1790. From vol. 3 of The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), between pages 354 and 355.

    Often had I almost resolved to write to you, to supply, in some measure, by an epistolary correspondence, the want of that conversation, which I had no other cause to regret than the interruption of it by the distance between us; and had more reasons than I can enumerate to covet. But uncertainty of communication, and a doubt whether the merit of any thing I could say would be an apology for diverting your attention from affairs incomparably more momentous hitherto kept me reluxtantly silent. Your letter, therefore, by mr Mazzei, delivered to me this day, by which I learn your wish to receive a line from me, and that too wherever you be, was received with joy. I accept the invitation with a pleasure one feels in renewing an acquaintance with an old friend whose company was entertaining and improving. O were our habitations so neighbouring, that

        - θάμ᾽ ἐνθάδ᾽ ἐόντες ἐμισγόμεθ᾽: οὐδέ κεν ἡμέας
        ἄλλο διέκρινεν φιλέοντέ τε τερπομένω τε,
        πρίν γ᾽ ὅτε δὴ θανάτοιο μέλαν νέφος ἀμφεκάλυψεν!
                    οδύσύ. Δ. 180

    A letter will meet with me in Williamsburg, where I have again settled, assisting, a professor of law and police in the university there, to form such characters as may be fit to succeed those which have been ornamental and useful in the national councils of America. Adieu.

5 Dec. 1783